


From a Stone

by mnemosyne



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 30 Day Dark Fandom Challenge, Child Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 11:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 8,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne/pseuds/mnemosyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>collected prompts based on <a href="http://actualodinson.tumblr.com/post/64547472272/30-day-dark-fandom-otp-writing-challenge">the 30 day dark otp/fandom challenge</a>.</p><p>tags don't relate to each chapter - there will be warnings placed on individual chapters as to their contents. if something hasn't been warned for that should be, let me know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prompt: darkness/lack of light

She used to have a nightlight as a child, a small pink plastic frog that Maggie had proclaimed looked like a mutant and Beth had thought was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in all her short little life. When she held it to her nose, she could smell that strange-solvent-sweet scent that companies seemed to believe equated to strawberries, and each night, as she kissed Frog goodnight, the smell curled around her, and promised her that she wouldn’t face the night alone.

Growing up, she’d used it less and less and eventually, when Beth had learned to relax in the darkness, to let the sounds of the farm at night lull her to sleep, she had not needed it at all, had placed it carefully in a corner of her cupboard that her mother would never find, and forgotten all about it by the time she woke up the next morning.

It’s only when they reach the prison that she thinks about Frog again. The noises here are different, and now they’ve stopped running, now they’ve got time to stop and catch their breath, now she has her own space again, isn’t pressed up between Maggie and Lori, can’t feel her sister sneaks out to Glenn, or the restless  way Lori’s hands flutter over her growing belly, she’s not exhausted enough to sleep easily. She shivers in bed, pulls her blankets close around her, tries to hear breathing through the walls, and for the first time in years, misses the pink-red glow of her small plastic frog. In another world, she thinks, she might have gone curl up at the end of her father’s bed, or Maggie’s, but that world is gone. So she gets up, silent and careful, eyes wide in the blackness, and goes to sit on the steps outside her bunk.

“Go to sleep, Beth,” grumbles a voice above her, without rancour. Beth leans her head on the metal rail, and remembers cloying chemical sugars. The breath she lets out now, long and low, isn’t one she knew she had been holding.

“I’m trying,” she replies. 


	2. prompt: nightmares; bad dreams; hallucinations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: nightmares; bad dreams; hallucinations.

It’s barely dawn; the grey-pink light filtering in through the grime of the window lends everything in the room they are holed up in an eerie vibrancy that feels like it comes from another world, any other world than theirs. Beth tucks her toes under a torn sheet and stares out the window, counting walkers across the fields. There are more now than there were yesterday, she notes, and closer. They cannot stay where they are.

Beside her, back flush against the wooden side of the windowseat, Daryl is curled tight beneath a blanket far too small for him, his breathing quiet, just a little too sharp to be peaceful. He looks like a child, Beth thinks, and silently reaches out to brush a soft hand over his brow. In his sleep, the man twitches, flinches against the touch, and Beth retracts her hand, watching as he settles again. The morning light stretches further into the room.

“I’m sorry,” Daryl says out loud, voice quiet, scratched, like fingernails raking through ash. “I’m  _sorry_.” His eyes are open now, staring at nothing; Beth’s toes curl further beneath her sheet.  _He’s still sleeping._  “Please,” Daryl whispers, and sucks in a long, rattling, breath. A brief hesitation, and Beth slides gently from her perch to the floor, joining him. Though the air in the room is warm, heavy with dust, she can feel his lean body shivering beneath the blanket. His hands clench into fists.

“ _Don’t.”_ he says, and his knees tuck up towards Beth, “ _I’m **sorry**_ **.”**

“Don’t be,” Beth whispers back. She takes one of his hands in both of hers, unfurls his fingers and lets his arm wrap close around her. “Wake up, Daryl,” she says, louder. She shakes the hand she’s holding. “Daryl.” Louder. “ _Daryl_.”

There’s a huff, and a choke and Daryl’s fingers tighten almost painfully against her skin for a moment before he lets go, bolting upright so fast that he nearly topples her to the floor. He stares at Beth, eyes wide, like he hasn’t recognised her. His fingers, she notices, are still laced through hers, his thumb resting light against the bare skin at her hip.

“You were having a nightmare,” she says gently to his taut expression.  “I had to wake you.” Daryl nods, curt, and looks away, through the window, though from this angle she knows he can’t see the fields outside, can’t see anything but the slowly whitening clouds.

“Happens sometimes,” he says eventually. There is a tiny flicker of movement in the hand resting in hers, feather-soft and almost imaginary. “Thanks.”


	3. prompt: abandoned places

Their footsteps don’t echo off the cold, linoleum flooring. Thickly coated as they are in blown dust and uncleared leaves, the peeling tiles feel almost soft beneath the worn soles of their shoes. Every step sinks in grime, like shuffling through grave soil.

“We shouldn’t be in here,” Beth says; her voice is low, tight, and her fingers are twitching, as if she’s trying to still them against some force of movement. “Something’s not right.”

“Not like we got much of a choice,” Daryl replies, and shoulders his bag like this is any other place, like the air doesn’t taste of blood and chalk dust. “You want to take your chances out there? With  _them_?”

Beth rolls her eyes. “No, but…” her hand waves at the walls, at fading crayon drawings stuck to paper boards. The sigh that escapes her is more frustrated than fearful. “You don’t feel that? There’s something.”

“Just keep moving,” Daryl tells her, as he carries on forward with deliberate steps. He doesn’t miss the pause before Beth’s small paces follow behind him. She’s right, of course. She’s always right about things like this; Daryl merely tightens his grip on his crossbow and studies the path ahead. He can’t hear walkers now, but that has never yet meant they aren’t nearby.

“Oh!” A small sound from behind, and Beth’s footsteps quicken. She shakes her head when he turns to her.  _It’s nothing_ , says her smile, though she glances behind them when she thinks he isn’t looking, bites her lip at the sight of something on the floor. But then her attention snaps back when he speaks her name, a mulish cast crossing her features stifling any further comment.

“Look, we’ll get out of here as soon as it’s safe,” he tells her, receiving only a snort as a reply. He wonders if she’s even noticed her hand reaching out, resting lightly on the back of his jacket. Her fingertips burn his skin through the fabric.

“Safe,” she says, and huffs half a laugh. The sound is hollow, all scorn and broken memories. “You and I will be ash long before then.”

Daryl stops then. Beth nearly collides with the back of him, steadies herself and doesn’t move away. Her breath ripples over his skin.

"We all end up the same," he says. "But I ain’t letting it come for you yet. So you can put that out of your damn mind right now."

He can feel the curve of her mouth against the skin of his shoulder. 

"Ok," Beth replies. 

"Ok."


	4. prompt: physical ailments (knife/bullet wounds; illness/fever)

_Pain._

_Blood, streaming down his torso, and a heat, a wildfire burn radiating-_

“Daryl, you stay with me, ok?”

_He knows that voice. He knows-_

_Pain. Fingers twisting, scratching, clawing through-_

“Goddamn son of a- did you do this on purpose, Dixon?”

_Something wet dripping on his face, tickling against his nose as it falls, falls-_

_Pain._

“Don’t you  _dare_  die.”

_Nothing._

_Nothing._

_Nothing._

He wakes with a start, winces as lightning shoots through the right side of his body. A tutting noise sounds to his right, and an insistent, gentle pressure is applied to his shoulder. When he tries to turn, a hand is thrust out, stopping his movement.

“You all right?” he asks the ceiling.

“I’m ok,” Beth replies. “Just hold still a second.”

And it’s as if every nerve in his body explodes at once. White hot sparks dance in his eyes and he swears, a long string of noises he’s barely conscious of making. A weight settles heavy on his chest, something pressing tight down the sides of his body, and he can’t move. He tries to throw it off, but his arms hang heavy, like they are pumped full with lead.

“The  _fuck_ ,” Daryl says, and blacks out again.

When he wakes up again, the sun is high, bright through the window. His upper body aches like a bruise, but he sits up anyway, hissing as his entire body protests. He feels a hundred years old. Two.  _Seven_.

“Welcome back,” Beth says, and waves a hand at his shoulder. “I kind of had to destroy your shirt.” Daryl twists his head; his torso is bare, save for reams of faded, grimy cotton wrapped around his upper arm, neck, chest, twisted and makeshift, and tied with skilful hands. “We were all out of bandages.”

She’s sitting cross legged next to him, hair loose around her shoulders; Daryl’s eyes widen at the bloodstains on her jeans. She only shrugs when she catches what he’s looking at.

“If It helps you any, it’s all yours,” she says. Her mouth quirks slightly, and there’s a flush on her cheeks that wasn’t there a moment ago. “The blood, I mean.”

“What happened?” Daryl asks. He remembers walkers, and a car, a bright yellow car, shouts, screams, and gunshots. The details he scrabbles for are lost somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

“Bandits,” Beth says, “and heroics.” She grins a little, though the movement doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Also yours.”

“Seems a lot of things are mine,” he says. He lets his head rest against the wooden wall, and reaches out to run a hand down the very familiar jacket Beth’s wearing, or at least, has draped, far too large and far too loose around herself. She shrugs again, and this time, her eyes twinkle with amusement.

“Well, you’re wearing  _my blouse_  too. It’s only fair.”

And he can’t help but laugh, though it hurts, hurts far too deep and sharp to only be the wound at his shoulder. His fingers twist in the fabric of his jacket, and as he shakes, he can feel her forehead rest against the side of his face, her nose pressed against the curve of his jaw.

“You are not going away again,” she says.


	5. prompt: negative emotion (B). (sadness, missing someone, helplessness.)

She only cries when she thinks he can’t hear. Sits on watch, gun held ready, shoulders shaking, tears streaming down her face.

She almost doesn’t make a sound.

He wants to tell her he knows.

They talk in the day. She talks. She had a cat once. And a doll named Daisy that Maggie burned in a fit of pique. Her father used to sing her to sleep. Her mother’s perfume smelled of apples and honey. She misses riding horses, reading romance novels, eating her own bodyweight in chocolate every so often because she never could quite put on the weight that her auntie always claimed she would.

She’s not quick to smile, not anymore, but her mouth curves up when he makes a joke, and her eyes wrinkle with fond disdain when he needles her. She makes faces back at him when he tries to signal her whilst hunting and chews her lip in concentration as he teaches her how to use the crossbow.

At night, when she’s sure he isn’t looking, she cries.

He wants to tell her.

It’s black out, when he does. Clouds cover the stars, the moon; with no lamps, no fire, there’s nothing that can be seen, not up close, not for miles, and the room they’ve locked themselves in is as safe as any they’ll find now. Beth’s in her corner, Daryl’s jacket pulled tightly around her slim frame, and she’s shivering, shivering silent, careful and  _away_.

She must hear him, he thinks, as he moves towards her; her whole body stills, and there’s a catch in her breath, like she’s holding it too hard, frozen like a rabbit in headlights.

“It’s all right,” he tells her. He brings his hands to her bare arms, and with only the briefest pause, she takes hold of them, pulls them around her until he’s kneeling behind her, chest pressed against her back and every pulse of her heart beats through him.

It’s Beth who leans back, curls in his arms, until her face is close to his, until the wetness on her cheeks starts cooling, tacky on his skin. She’s shaking again, eyes closed, breath stuttering as it ghosts over his lips.

When she kisses him, the taste of salt and blood twists through him like a bayonet.


	6. prompt: fairytale inspired horror

The little girl knows what wolves look like; great beasts with wide, slavering maws and blood-flecked eyes that glow in the dark. They lie and trick and hide themselves away in dark corners, waiting for children to forget themselves and trip merrily off the path and into their bellies. Stay on the path, little girl, where it’s bright, and sing, sing loud, and the wolves will not dare to harm you. Do not stray into the wilderness, where the bad things live.

The woman knows what wolves look like; men and women, with watchful eyes and wicked blades hanging at their belts. They lie and trick and hide themselves away in charming facades, waiting for children to forget themselves and let down the guards to their hearts and their stores. Do not stay on the path for long, little girl, for their eyes will find you, and do not make a sound, for the wolves wish to do you harm. But do not stray into the wilderness, where the bad things live.

These days, she skirts the edges of the wilderness with practised footsteps, a dance she’s learned to follow almost without a thought. When she sleeps, her feet seem to still be dancing, echoing the steps she’s learned in this new world, and she does not wake rested anymore. There are fading memories in her head, about princes and woodcutters and poor shepherd boys, about worn out slippers, and broken tin soldiers. Sometimes, just before she wakes, she thinks she catches glimpses of another world. Sometimes, when she is awake, she knows that she does.

“We’ll have to find new stories,” she says one day. Her thin hands rest light on her rounding belly as she sits on a splintered wooden chair. “None of the old ones fit anymore.”

“I think we got stories enough,” he replies.


	7. prompt: cannibalism

Even through the rain, the air reeks of blood and stale vomit; a rotting, festering stench that even the walkers seem to be avoiding. A group of them are gathered just beyond the fence, wandering aimlessly in the neighbouring field, and haven’t yet noticed the two living people huddled together by the padlocked door to a small farm building, flattening against the wood in an effort to find some shelter from this downpour.

 

Daryl wrinkles his nose, beckons Beth closer to his side. Stepping in, she aims his crossbow at a walker, lining up the sights before she lets it drop again.

“I don’t think we should go in,” she offers, from beneath the hood she’s made by rucking up her jacket over her head. Her midriff is bared to the elements, but she doesn’t appear to notice. Daryl glances at her, the way her hair is plastered to her skin, then back at the door.

“Stay out of sight,” he says, jerking a thumb at the farmhouse. A light flickers on in one of the downstairs windows; too steady to be candleflame, and Beth instinctively steps closer to Daryl, staring at the movement. “Got a feeling they ain’t people we want to be talking to.”

He presses an ear against the wooden wall and moves his hand in small arcs, palm flat against the boards. “They obviously got a generator though.”

“That makes a difference?” Beth asks, though it’s less a question. “What are you listening for?”

“Walkers,” Daryl replies, “you should know that.”

The girl grimaces, tugs her makeshift hood further over her head. Thunder rolls, dark and heavy, through the clouds and the rain starts falling harder, great drops that bounce painfully off their skin. She moves her free hand to rest against the small of Daryl’s back.

“Don’t want to get closer to that house than we need to,” he says, and tugs at a bit of loose board. “Should be able to slip through here without letting them know.” The board comes off in his hand, and he peers into the blackness beyond. A foul smell rolls from the hole he’s made and even Daryl flinches at the odour; Beth gags, swallows and without a word, hands over the flashlight clipped to her belt.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Daryl breathes. Beth moves in to look, but in a flash, he’s pushed her away, propelling her down the side of the barn. The wood scrapes painfully against her she moves, and she can’t stifle the yelp of pain. The walkers at the fence turn towards the noise. Daryl swears again, and pulls at Beth’s arm until they’re running, both running as fast as they can, inches from the grasping hands they had been trying to avoid. Their feet slip in the mud the storm is creating, but Daryl doesn’t let up, doesn’t let them stop until they’re far, far away, panting for breath in a rocky hollow, lungs burning, and sweat mingling with rainwater as it streams down their faces. Daryl’s legs give out from underneath him, and he slips to the ground, still holding tight enough to Beth’s elbow that she stumbles down with him.

 “What did you see back there?” she hisses. “This isn’t like you.”

He shakes his head, closing his eyes. Bile rises in his throat, and he forces it down. “Something you didn’t need to,” he replies.


	8. prompt: ghosts/haunting

“Well, looks like you landed  _right_  on your feet, little brother.”

Merle’s not there, not really, though it’s hard to believe that when the dirt scuffs under the toe of his boot, where he’s stubbing out the last of a cigarette. Daryl fights the urge to let his eyes flicker up, to look at his brother’s face. He knows what he’ll find there, that half-pitying, half-sly curl of lip, the predatory tilt of his head, the watchful gaze that’s held just a little too long. With deliberate movements, he continues to sharpen the edges of his hunting knife, and tries not to think about Beth, only metres away, resting whilst Daryl keeps watch.

“Now now, pretending I’m not here don’t mean I’m going away,” Merle continues. His tone drops, dark, lascivious. “Not with a view like that. Nothing quite like a pretty girl to  _lift_   _the spirits_. If you catch me.”

He crouches down beside his brother, face close enough that Daryl can smell the pungency of tar and liquor, mingling through unwashed skin and cracking leather, the smell that has always meant  _Merle_. His heart thumps with an inexorable familiarity.

“But I know you, Darlin. You ain’t been  _near_  her.” Merle’s chuckle is low, contempt rasping with mirth. “What would you know about women? Hope she don’t get dizzy all up on that pedestal.”

“Shut up,” Daryl responds at last, barely above a whisper. His hands still, clenched round the hilt of his knife; he glares up at his brother, uncaring of what he must look like. “That’s enough. You ain’t here.”

Merle only laughs again; with a viper strike of movement, he cuffs Daryl hard around the ear, with a playful whoop of challenge, just as every bout of childhood wrestling had begun, and immediately bounces back on his heels as his brother goes reeling in the dirt. His mouth splits in a wide, wild grin.

“You so sure of that, kid?” he asks.

Wordlessly, Daryl picks up his knife and whetstone once more.


	9. prompt: doomed relationships

“This ain’t what you want.” Daryl’s hand is pressed firm against her shoulder, the resolve in his words belied by the thumb that skates over the hollow of her neck. Somewhere outside, a vixen screams, piercing the thick silence of the night. Beth does not step away. 

“How would you know a thing like that?” she asks, voice soft, questioning. Her hands hang at her sides; she does not move to raise them to him, though she wants to, though her fingers itch to curl around his arms, pull him closer in. His blue eyes are studying her, dark with something she can’t quite read, but she meets them straight, and tries to pretend she is calmer than the pulse beat he can surely feel is suggesting. “You’re not in my head.”

He looks away from her and does not reply. The draught from the cracked boards at the window ruffles through the edges of Beth’s shirt; her skin prickles with goosebumps, a chill counterpoint to the warm tingle that she can still feel on her lips. Unconsciously, she bites them together, runs her tongue against the folded skin.

“You’re a kid,” Daryl tries, but even he sounds unconvinced. His fingers trail up Beth’s neck, calloused pads caressing the sensitive skin behind her ear. She cannot stop herself from leaning into the touch. Daryl sucks in a breath at her movement, and something like a smile tugs the corner of his mouth before disappearing completely. His hand drops and he steps away, turning his back.

“You get some rest,” he says over his shoulder, “I’ll be outside.”

As he disappears through the doorway, Beth raises her own hand to where his had been, warm and tentative against her cheek and a quiet, wry laugh escapes her.

She shuts the door behind him.

 


	10. prompt: cracky b-movie horror

“ _Sharks_?” Daryl barks a surprised laugh. “You’re afraid of  _sharks_?”

Beth kicks a stone out of her way and turns on him, walking backwards down the path. A cool breeze is rippling the grass of the fields around them, a hazy clean, familiar smell hangs on the air. They can see for miles, and see _nothing_. It feels something like freedom.

“It was that old movie,” she tells him, “it ate a  _boat_.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you what happened in New York when they found that giant ape.”

She emits an exaggerated sigh and grins. “Now who’s making fun of who? Is this revenge for the car wash? Because I didn’t know there was a generator.”

“Maybe you should have checked.”

“Maybe I  _should_.” She frowns, and pauses, raising a hand. Daryl stops too, tilts his head and regards her with half a smile on his face.  The sunlight glints off the buckle of her belt, and for a moment, they could be anywhere, anyone, at any time at all. “I am not sure that came out right, because I am fairly sure I was winning this.”

“Yeah? That’s good math.”

“Works for me.” Beth spins back, and begins to stride up the path, arms swinging, ponytail bobbing at her back. Small clouds of dust swirl around her ankles.  He watches her go thoughtfully and there’s only a moment before his lips purse and he whistles two notes over at her.

“Stop it,” says Beth, not looking at him. Daryl ignores her, starts walking with an easy, deliberate step, his bag bumping gently against his hip.

He whistles the notes again.

“ _Not funny_.” She starts walking faster. So does Daryl.

He keeps whistling.

She  _runs_.

In the chase towards the distant trees, it’s all too easy to pretend that celluloid monsters are the only things they need to be afraid of.

And just for the moment, they make believe.


	11. prompt: victorian gothic/english gothic

The house is large, empty, though it has not always been. There are bottles and blankets strewn on the floor, discarded, rusting knives, empty ammunition boxes and in the furthest bedroom, a tiny box room at the back of the house, scattered dolls lying on their backs, staring up at nothing in particular with unblinking, empty eyes.

Beth picks one up, smooths matted red hair away from the cracked china of its face. Carefully, she runs a fingernail over red painted lips, scraping at layers of dust.

“Can’t have that,” she says to the doll, “you’ll choke.” 

When she looks up, Daryl is leaning in the doorway, one arm crossed against his chest. Dark shadows flicker over his face from the candles she’s lit; he looks almost otherworldly in the light as he looks over the room, at the toys on the floor, the carved wooden faces in the doorframe, scratched gilt and dulling varnish. There are no windows here, the small space that may once have performed that function, high on one wall, is long since boarded up.

“Clear?” she asks. He tears his gaze away from a portrait high on the wall and nods.

“Clear,” he replies. “Only your new friends to worry about.”

Beth moves to sit on the bed, pushing the papers she’s piled on the crocheted blanket to one side. Her back rests against the wooden headboard, and she drops the doll haphazard on the pillow next to her. There’s a slithering, crackling sound as it slips over the satin fabric, falling with a heap of papers to the floor. Beth makes no move to pick them up. With languid movements, she levers off her shoes, one by one, brings her feet tucked up on the bed.

“I dreamed of living in a house like this when I was little,” she says, and moves a little to let Daryl sit next to her. His bare arm presses flush against hers, and she runs her fingers over the inside of his wrist, gently flaking away dried dust and dirt.

“The amount of time we just spent checking through all these rooms, it’d be a bitch to secure, walkers or not,” Daryl sniffs, and Beth laughs.

“You’re such a romantic, Daryl,” she says, as their hands entwine.

“You’re wasting candles,” he says, and though she doesn’t look at him, but she can tell he’s smiling, that half-curled tease of a smirk that takes any sting out of his reprimand.

As the candles burn around them, they sit on the bed, barely moving, for a long time, until Beth’s hands move to cup Daryl’s face, until she draws him down until his lips are warm against hers, until she shifts, and lets the weight of him press her down into the coverlets.

More papers flutter off the bed, until the cold glass eyes of forgotten china doll on the floor are covered entirely.


	12. prompt: urban legends

Beth reaches down to the bag at her feet, hooking the strap with one hand, and pulls it to her lap.

“Look what I found,” she says, digging through the collected pieces of nothing much she’s found here and there, careful not to let Daryl see it all. Her fingers close around her prize, and she draws it out with a triumphant grin.

“Peanut butter?”

“Peanut butter,” she replied, shaking the tiny jar. “There was a cache in the last house.”

“And you didn’t mention it?”

“We had food enough. This is your birthday surprise.”

“It ain’t my birthday.”

Beth shrugs and unscrews the lid. She sniffs at the contents of the jar, a blissful expression crossing her face. “It might as well be,” she says, and holds it up to his face.

The air is hot inside the car they’ve found, too hot, and already beads of oil are forming on the top of the butter. Its thick, sweet smell fills the air, almost completely overpowering the scent of burning rubber and slowly drying sweat.

“Shame we don’t have any bread,” Beth says. “Excuse fingers.” She scoops a little of the peanut butter onto her index finger, and sucks it into her mouth in a way that Daryl isn’t entirely sure he wants to be watching, if he’s supposed to concentrate on the road. The noises she’s making don’t help either.

“You going to save some of my birthday present for me?” Beth pulls a face and screws the lid of the jar back on. She rests it on the dashboard, putting it down with a pointed  _clunk_. Daryl opens his mouth to say something else, but a shadow passes over Beth’s face.

“What’s that?”

A figure on the side of the road, a long red coat, surely too heavy in the afternoon heat. An arm raises, to flag the car, and as they near, Beth and Daryl can see a small bundle wrapped in the figure’s other arm. Without a word, Daryl slows the car, and Beth winds down her window.

“Please,” the woman says, “you must help me.”

The two people in the car look at one another, something unspoken passing between them. Beth shifts, leans out the window a little further.

“Where do you need to go?” she asks, “how come you’re out here alone?”

“I walked,” the woman replies. Her coat swings open slightly; all she is wearing is a shift dress, light, white cotton. Beth glances at her feet; bare, scuffed and bloody. Daryl sucks in a breath through his teeth. From the curve of the woman’s arm, small, snuffling cries start to emerge.

“Just to shelter,” says the woman, stepping forward. Beth looks at Daryl again, then back at the woman. Her dark eyes seem to bore into her, like she’s reading something on the back of Beth’s soul. Sweat prickles down the back of Beth’s neck, but she can’t tell anymore if that’s from the heat.

“Get in,” she says, getting out of the car, “I’ll go in back.”

“Thank you,” says the woman, and picks up a small bag at her feet. “ _Thank you_.”

Her name is Miri, the child, Nina, but that’s all she will say. She does not look at either of them, but stares out of the window, humming something that lulls the child to silence, a tune that Daryl recognises, but cannot place, a tune that Beth knows has been sung to her, but cannot think of when.

They drive, and the woman sings.

It is nearly dark before they stop, miles down the road, and running out of fuel. The woman is silent now, has been for the last hour, but something has stilled any other interruption in the car. The air still smells faintly of oil and peanuts, swirled through with the woman’s perfume, a smoky, honeyed scent. Incense and ash.

“End of the line,” Daryl announces, “we’re out of gas.”

Somewhere in the backseat, Beth stirs, scrubs a hand over her eyes. “Should’ve filled up before we left,” she yawns, and is rewarded with a harrumph from the front.

“You ok, Miri?” she asks, leaning forwards as the car comes to a complete stop. Her fingers pluck at the woman’s shoulder. “You sleeping?”

The coat falls at her touch, crumpling down around a loaf of bread, wrapped neatly in wax-paper and string.

Somewhere distant, Beth swears she can hear a baby crying.


	13. prompt: silence

Once upon a time, silence was a normal thing. It stretched out through the fields, through the house, through the wide open, cloudless skies, and promised a freedom there for anyone who would take it. Silence was skill acquired, a trusted companion, a waiting watchfulness of future reward. Silence has been a friend for as long as either of them can remember.

The first night after the prison, the first night they curl up together, a hot, messy tangle of legs and arms and words they don’t want to speak out loud, the silence unfurls around them, a jagged reminder of everything they have lost.

They do not hear Rick’s slow, heavy tread on concrete floor, nor the rustle of a turned page of one of Carl’s comics. The desperate, not-quite-careful breaths and gasps from Maggie and Glenn’s cell. Judith’s low wail, Hershel’s prayers, the myriad patterns of snores and shuffling and quiet cries.

In the harsh expanse of nothing at all, the slither-scrape of walker feet against wood floors is almost welcome.

For now, though, they choose not disturb the slow tread of the dead. The chest of drawers across the door will prevent any idle intrusions, and the window, long since nailed shut with the boards of a wardrobe, is no entry from outside either. They are safe, for now, safe to listen and remember.

Voices stilled, they talk with hands and lips and eyes, they talk with feather-touches pulling at buttons, moans stifled with hard kisses, the slow rhythm of rocking hips, promises and prayers mouthed against bones that jut too sharply underneath dirt-caked skin. A finger-grip too tight in Daryl’s hair, a bite of teeth that grazes sharp against Beth’s thigh.

When it is over, they sleep entangled, and do not even consider to allow themselves to dream.


	14. prompt: torture

_They had found them just outside the town. Arms laden with supplies, Beth and Daryl had returned to their car, ready to leave, and been stopped by the unmistakable clicking of firearms held by people who knew exactly how to use them. There had been no chance to flee or to fight; their momentary inattention had been rewarded; they were surrounded._

_“Thanks for not telling me to run,” Beth had whispered to Daryl’s prone form, as they were tied and shoved in the back of a van. She had kissed him gently behind one ear, before something large and heavy struck the back of her head._

Daryl isn’t there when Beth wakes up. Her hands and feet are bound to a chair, in the corner of a room of what looks to be some old cabin, one that has clearly seen better days; sunlight streams in through holes in the walls. She swallows around the fabric they have gagged her with, whoever they are, and tries to figure out where she is. Carefully, gently, she flexes her legs and arms, testing her bonds. The thin rope digs into her flesh painfully, but she applies herself methodically to each loop, breathing in and out, deep and slow, through her teeth as she works.

“I wouldn’t bother,” comes a voice from the doorway. “Our Ellie’s good at knots. Got badges for it and everything.” A woman, somewhere in her fifties perhaps, with tanned gold skin and hair piled into a bun, enters the room, and holds out a bowl of something that smells  _wonderful_  towards Beth. “Thought I’d come visit, you don’t mind if I eat, do you?”

“Who are you?” Beth demands, ignoring her stomach’s plaintive growl, “and where’s my friend?”

The woman shrugs, perches on the table across from where Beth is tied. She dips a chunk of bread into the stew, and nibbles at it as she talks.

“You’re the trespassers,” she says, lightly, “and thieves both. Who are  _you?_ How many of you are there?”

“Just us. Survivors.” says Beth. “We didn’t know this town was yours,” she adds. “Let me see him.”

The woman chews on her bread thoughtfully. “I’m not sure that’s true,” she says. “I was watching you. Folks out on their own don’t move like that.” She balances the bowl on her lap. “I reckon you’ve got a group.” She smiles, cold and dangerous, “I reckon we’ve nabbed ourselves a scouting party.”

It’s at that moment, the first cry of agony cuts through the air. Beth jolts in her chair, but the stranger merely tilts her head to one side, and watches the expressions change on the younger woman’s face. The shout is followed by another, and another, building and building, until the last, which stops abruptly. Beth closes her eyes, tries to quell the nausea rising inside her. She doesn’t know what’s worse, the sounds, or the fact that he isn’t making any anymore.

“I suppose we’ll see soon enough though,” the woman says, with a cheery giggle, and pops another piece of bread into her mouth.


	15. prompt: last kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: canon character death

It seems wrong, that it should happen like this. The sun high in the sky, the few clouds bright white against deep blue, almost too perfect, like a child’s crayon drawing. There’s little shelter around, the only shade the side of a tumbledown shed, overgrown with weeds. Beth drops down beside it, draws her legs up underneath her, and stares up at nothing.

“We gotta move, Beth,” Daryl says, kicking at dirt. Her head lolls against the wooden wall behind her as she looks at him, her mouth set in a thin, worried line. The expression she’s wearing is one he’s seen before, and wishes he didn’t know exactly what it means.

“No,” she says, “we don’t.” One of her arms is crossed against her body, drying rivulets of rust-brown blood streaking down her wrist from the wound at her shoulder. “And don’t pretend you don’t know that either.” She tries to smile, but there are tears in her eyes, and she looks away from him, blinking. He watches her throat constrict as she swallows, and breathes in deep through her nose. Her breath shudders, and stops. It takes a moment before he realises that she’s holding it in on purpose.

“Stop,” he says, sinking down beside her. His hands rest against her thighs. “That ain’t going to help anyone.”

Beth shakes her head, eyes closed. Daryl’s hand moves to the side of her face, his thumb rubbing at the wetness on her cheeks. He’s not afraid, not yet, and she needs him now. Her fingers reach up, clasp around his, almost too tight, and their foreheads rest together. Her breath is hot against his cheek as she releases it.

“I thought I’d be ready,” she whispers, “I thought I wouldn’t be afraid.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he replies, “I’m right here.”

That makes her smile, small and sad. Her lips brush against his, light,  tentative, like they had that very first time, nowhere near long enough ago, and he tenses, just for a moment, before returning the touch, harder, desperate and  _sorry_. The kiss tastes of salt and iron, bitter against his tongue.

When he draws back, Beth holds his face in both of her hands.

“I won’t ask you to do it,” she says. “You don’t have to.”

“You know I do,” he replies, and means something else entirely. Beth nods, and kisses him again.

“I know.”


	16. prompt: modern horror

Beth has a knack for finding odd things wherever they go. The ratty messenger bag she carries everywhere is starting to look like a lost and found box at the world’s most accessible museum. A small lead soldier, paint flaking from his face, a postcard, from Violet to Ilsa, all copperplate handwriting on the back of naked cartoon ladies, loose Australian coins and a baby’s cardigan, grey, with red and yellow flowers.

“Judith’ll like it,” she’d insisted, when Daryl questioned her. He’d raised an eyebrow as she tucked it firmly into her bag, but had otherwise made no comment.

So it comes as little surprise at all her instant diversion when her eyes light on the hand-painted wooden ouija board in one of the houses they’re investigating.

“Daddy always said they were evil things,” she says, running her hands over the wobbling, pseudo-gothic lettering in black and gold. Somebody had evidently taken a lot of care to produce it. It almost glitters in the small shaft of light they are letting in through the open doorway. “But I kind of get people wanting to speak with the dead.” Her fingers tap gently around the letter H as she crouches down to inspect it more closely.

“Don’t mess with it,” Daryl says. His tone is flat; he stands framed in silhouette, eyeing the board with distrust.

“They were silly games for teenagers,” Beth says. Her tongue flickers against her lips, and she frowns. “Besides, it’s not like the dead aren’t already walking amongst us.”

“Their spirits aren’t,” says Daryl. He shifts from one foot to another, looks around the room. The shadows in here feel heavier somehow, and he doesn’t feel like chiding himself for the shiver of fear that passes through him. Beth’s face is intent as she tilts the board this way and that, as her fingers close around the small wooden pointer. “Your daddy’s right, that’s an evil thing.”

The quiet certainty in his voice makes her stop, and with considered movements, she pushes the board away from her, scoring track marks through the dust.  “Strange,” she says under her breath, straightening.

“What?”

She doesn’t answer, just steps away, back to Daryl, and he notices that she does not take her eyes from it. He flattens against the doorway when she passes and follows her from the house. Behind them, the board, clean as new, melts into the darkness once again.

“People talk too much anyway,” Daryl says, once they are outside. He lights a cigarette with fingers that are more unsteady than he wants her to see. “The dead don’t need to listen to our whining.”

Beth’s back pocket bulges, and the planchette’s sharp point presses upwards, not quite touching against bare skin.


	17. prompt: bad memories/flashbacks

He doesn’t ask her where the blood comes from. The small stains that dot the edges of her sleeves, her torso, the rust-coloured streak which is slowly drying at her temple, where a stubborn wisp of hair refuses to stay put. In the slowly lightening pink sky, he kneels, and washes her hands and arms with a small piece of flannel, in a bowl of ice-cold water. When he is done, he drops the washcloth back into the bowl and holds her hands in his as she cries.

She peels the bloodied shirt from her body, unselfconscious in her bra and jeans, and uses the same water to wash it through, twisting cuffs together, and scrubbing them hard against each other until her hands are pink and raw. The look on her face, the cold, deadened tomb lying behind her eyes, tells him that she isn’t looking at greying fabric and a chipped tin bowl; there’s some other story playing out for her in her head, and there’s little doubt as to who the actors are. As she works, Daryl removes his jacket and drapes it around her thin shoulders. If she notices, she doesn’t let on.

Later, when they leave the house, Beth hikes her bag onto her shoulder and skirts a wide berth of the left side of the drive; a walker body lies in the gravel, head at right angles, hanging connected to its neck with only scraps of torn flesh, a twisted grotesque of humanity. Flies buzz at the corpse, lighting on black blood and rotting wounds, clumps around the face that is barely recognisable as a face anymore. The marks are clean edged, Daryl sees, and were not there yesterday when the same body was shambling through the streets.

Beth’s knife glints at her belt when she turns back to hurry him along. He doesn’t have to ask.


	18. prompt: rituals

“What are you doing?”

Beth pauses, rests her cheek on Daryl’s torso, so that he is forced to tuck his chin down as far as it will go to look at her.  The muscles at the back of his neck protests at the strain, and he’s reminded all over again of why he hates these large buildings, all rooms and corridors and hundreds of dark corners in which walkers could be hiding. In the room’s darkness, he can barely make out the shape of Beth’s head, but he can imagine the rest of the details well enough that it may as well be broad daylight.

“Diary,” she says, “I left mine at the prison.”

Her fingers trail across his chest again, swirling in large arcs and tiny curlicues. “We took out sixteen walkers today,” she adds, “and I saw a mama fox. She was feeding her babies,” there’s a sleepy laugh in her voice, “it was _very_ cute.”

A small noise emanates from the back of Daryl’s throat, and Beth sighs.

“Dear diary,” she begins again, and this time, reaches down to take his hand in hers. She straightens his index finger, curls her own around it. “Dear diary,” she repeats, drawing an exaggerated shape on his chest, and finally he gets it.

“We can get you paper and a pencil,” he says, “you don’t need to pretend to write on me.”

“I know,” Beth replies, “but then somebody might read all my secrets.”

“You got secrets?”

There’s a giggle, and sharp teeth press against his skin, a playful nip that doesn’t hurt. Beth’s nose is buried in the hollow of his breastbone.

“ _Maybe_ ,” says Beth. Her lips tickle as she talks and he can’t help but wriggle a little beneath her. “But I’m not going to tell you, am I?”

“You’ll tell your diary.”

“I’ll tell my diary.”


	19. prompt: classic horror

The dress is in the bottom of a suitcase, creamy silk, pristine pearl buttons, delicate stitching over carefully crafted lace, and a streak of dark grey-brown across its bodice, the last touch of the dead in blood and terror. A wedding dress, perhaps, almost rescued. Beth holds it up to herself and looks to the mirror, her reflection swaying skirts back at her. She hums a little, a melody of a song of which the lyrics she has long forgotten, but which seems to fill in this grand room in a way that their voices had not before, when they had first arrived, when their words had seemed to echo across the hall to each other like some great chasm had come between them.

 Daryl is sat on the bed, pulling off his shoes. He’s not comfortable here, Beth can see it, his eyes darting up and around the room frequently, his shoulders are stiff with tension. The gothic arches and heavy drapery of the room are an imposing vision, but she knows there’s something else bothering him, something unsuited to explanation, difficult to articulate with clumsy language. The same feeling creeps across the back of her neck and shoulders, but she shakes it away; until morning, there can be no safety in going elsewhere. The Beth in the mirror flicks her hair over her shoulders, and stares out with a defiant jut to her chin.

The dreams come later, long after they have left the old hotel, with its fake wooden beams and painted red walls. She spins in satin and silk, dance after dance after dance, and does not know who her partner is. An overpowering smell of lilies and roses engulfs her as she moves, twining thorns around her ankles, her wrists, her neck. Their sharp points cut into delicate skin, but she dances on, and on, and on, until the tall windows of the unknown ballroom glitter with the first light of the sun. Somewhere in the back of her memory, she recalls flashes of leather and motor oil, warm hands, sharp eyes, rough words over soft meaning, and with a wrench, she pulls herself away from the stardust of the masquerade, whispers crying out in her wake.

It takes her longer each morning to remember.


	20. prompt: angels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: child death

There are always walkers in churches, shambling aimlessly down the aisles, hunched, slumped in pews, scratching solitary against the wooden walls of a confessional. A last conversation with God, before the resurrection.

Beth is walking slowly down the centre of the church, shafts of sunlight mottling over her in jewelled patches of purple and blue. The seated walkers, grey skin flaking off to long-neglected floors, start to shuffle towards her, but there is no hurry in their movements, none of the desperate attack of those they have been fending off on the way to this town. Almost carelessly, Beth swings her knife through the eye of one, another, Daryl puts a bolt through the forehead off. The lack of resistance is almost pitiful, and a touch of something like remorse clenches in Daryl’s chest. It would be pitiful, if he felt pity for these things anymore. As he follows her, Beth neatly sidesteps a tiny, grasping hand at her ankle and stops, staring at the child-walker. A girl, perhaps, if the swinging lace of the tunic is anything to go by, but there’s no other clue. It wouldn’t have been old enough to walk, Daryl thinks watching it slide itself along the floor, and wonders if it can even know what it feels itself hungering for. He doesn’t have to load the bolt that kills it, and Beth shoots him a grateful look as it gasps a last breath and stops moving. He leaves the bolt where it is.

“I used to love coming to church,” Beth tells him when they’ve cleared the last walker, “all those people, coming together to hope, to talk to God. It was beautiful.” She reaches out to touch a small stand of black twisted metal; the candles that once stood here, speared through with wicked looking spikes, are long gone, but cracking splashes of wax in cream and red remain, remnants of a prayer that still seems to echo off these dusty walls.

“Daddy used to say that angels would watch over me,” she continues, when he doesn’t respond. “Keep me and Maggie and Shawn safe.” Her mouth pinches into a downwards moue, before a flicker of a smile passes over it. “I was about to say he was wrong about that. But he wasnt, not quite.”

Her hand finds Daryl’s, and he looks down at her, into her eyes so blue, so terrifyingly, honestly blue, like sky over a still lake. The expression on her face is gentle, open in a way he hasn’t seen on her for a long time and suddenly he finds himself dry-mouthed and uncertain. Nothing comes to his head, no words, no response seems quite right, and he stiffens, involuntarily, body curling back in on itself. For a brief moment, he looks back at the child’s body in the aisle, and down at the hand that put it there, the one that Beth’s holding. His skin feels hot, parched, and there is a rushing noise in his ears he can’t quite focus on to hear.

 Beth squeezes his fingers and steps away.

“We should head out back,” she says, adjusting the knife at her belt. Her nose wrinkles, frown lines forming furrows between her brows. “There’s nothing to find here.”


End file.
